The Rules of the Game: Feminist Policymaking in Chile Política, Vol
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Política ISSN: 0716-1077 [email protected] Universidad de Chile Chile Haas, Liesl The Rules of the Game: Feminist Policymaking in Chile Política, vol. 46, 2006, pp. 199-225 Universidad de Chile Santiago, Chile Available in: http://www.redalyc.org/articulo.oa?id=64504608 How to cite Complete issue Scientific Information System More information about this article Network of Scientific Journals from Latin America, the Caribbean, Spain and Portugal Journal's homepage in redalyc.org Non-profit academic project, developed under the open access initiative The Rules of the Game: Feminist Policymaking in Chile 199 The Rules of the Game: Feminist Policymaking in Chile Liesl H AAS he fact that it is me who is here tonight is a symbol of the change we have lived. We leave behind many fears and prejudices. Today Chilean society T is more open, more tolerant, more diverse. People don’t want only the right to vote, but also the right to have a voice. They want to be heard. They want to forge their own destiny. In my government we will provide a channel for this desire for participation. We will forge a great alliance between politics and society, between representatives and the represented. (Victory speech by president-elect Dr. Michelle Bachelet, Santiago, Chile, January 15, 2006) The election of Socialist Michelle Bachelet to the Chilean presidency has enormous importance –both symbolic and practical– for Chilean women and their ongoing struggle for full citizenship and equal rights. An avowed feminist, she signifies the progress that Chilean women have made since the transition to democracy in legitimizing issues of women’s rights and in gaining greater political voice. She has already demonstrated her commitment to expanding the gains Chilean women have made to date to by appointing of a cabinet that is 50% female and signaling her support for a positive discrimination law that would boost women’s representation in the Congress. In many ways, Michelle Bachelet’s political success would seem to represent the public face of a deeper transformation of women’s status in Chilean society. This study evaluates that conclusion by analyzing the progress Chilean women have gained since the end of authoritarian rule in implementing the political goals of the feminist movement and expanding women’s legal rights. Thousands of Chilean women risked their lives fighting for a return to democracy. To what extend did the democracy they get reward their efforts? Much of the existing research on women and politics in Chile emphasizes the ways that Chilean democracy has fallen short of the Volumen 46 - Otoño 2006, pp. 199-225 46 200 Liesl H AAS expectations of the feminist movement 1 . A number of scholars emphasize the political dissolution of the feminist movement and the women’s movement more broadly (Alvarez, 1999; Matear, 1997), which has dramatically reduced the visibility of feminism as a source of political pressure for policy reform. While some of the factors reducing the movement’s political influence are internal in nature 2, scholars have also pointed out the ways in which the democratic transition itself and the institutional political structure that resulted have served to undermine women’s participation and to limit the opportunities for far- reaching policy reforms (Alvarez, 1999; Waylen, 1993; Ríos Tobar, 2003). Although the creation of Sernam ( Servicio Nacional de la Mujer ), a cabinet- level women’s rights agency, represents a permanent location for women’s rights advocacy within the state, both members of feminist organizations and feminist representatives in Congress lament their secondary role in Sernam’s policymaking efforts (Richards, 2003, 2004; Franceschet, 2003; Schild, 1998; Waylen, 1996). Yet there have also been a number of important advances in women’s rights since the transition to democracy. Sernam and feminist representatives in Congress have spearheaded a broad range of policy proposals expanding women’s equality, touching on education, health, political representation, employment, day care, marital law, and the constitution. Among these proposals are some notable successes, such as the passage of legislation on domestic violence, sexual assault, day care, employment discrimination and divorce. Women’s political representation, while low, is on the rise across political parties, and support for a national quota law is increasing. Perhaps more significantly, congressional support for feminist policy proposals has diffused beyond the small core of feminist representatives who initiated the majority of proposals in the first democratic administrations. The same literature that notes the political disintegration of the feminist movement also acknowledges the wide diffusion of feminist ideals throughout Chilean society – in the media, universities, political parties, and public opinion (Ríos Tobar, 2003). How can we make sense of the conflicting characterizations of the state of women’s rights in Chile? In this article, I analyze the progress Chilean women have made since the transition to democracy by focusing on what is inarguably a core component of progress on women’s rights: the 1. The feminist movement, which is a subset of the broader women’s movement, seeks the transformation of the system of gender domination. As there is no single, unified feminist community in Chile, most scholars speak of “feminisms” or feminist movements. See Frohman and Valdés 1993, Alvarez 1998, Baldez 1999, Ríos 2003, Blofield and Haas 2005. 2. A number of factors have negatively affected the feminist community since the transition to democracy, including financial difficulties, exhaustion and lack of generational replacement, a depletion of leadership to political parties, and difficulty strategizing movement activism to fit the democratic political context. The Rules of the Game: Feminist Policymaking in Chile 201 passage of legislation that promotes the goals of the feminist movement. While the passage of legislation is, of course, not the only test of a society’s openness to women’s rights, it is undeniably a critical component of any larger program of political, cultural and economic transformation of women’s status. The feminist movement that arose under the dictatorship (1973-1989) articulated a well-developed agenda for political change, and the political parties vying for representation in the new government promised to respond to these concerns. To what extent did democracy allow feminists to achieve political change and implement the demands they had developed over the previous sixteen years? By looking at legislative attempts to promote women’s equality, we are able to examine the political responsiveness of the Chilean government to citizen claims for equal treatment, which goes to the heart of democratization. The Feminist Policy Agenda Feminist legislation seeks to eliminate all forms of economic, political, social and cultural inequalities between women and men. It thus seeks women’s full and equitable incorporation as citizens. Drawing on the policy agenda developed by the feminist community under the dictatorship, early in the first post-transition democratic administration congressional advocates for women’s rights 3 and the leadership of Sernam began development of a wide-ranging policy agenda, touching on a number of critical issues of women’s rights. Over the past sixteen 3. Congressional advocates for women’s rights include several representatives who self- identify as feminist and have strong connections to the feminist movement in Chile. Many of the first feminist policy proposals following the transition were spearheaded by these representatives, most notably Deputies Adriana Muñoz (PS, later PPD), María Antonieta Saa (PPD), Laura Rodriguez (PH) and Senator (and, later, Deputy) Laura Soto (PPD). Other women representatives from the Left, such as Isabel Allende (PS), had weaker links with organized feminist groups but were consistent advocates of feminist legislation in the Congress and described themselves as feminists. Finally, women representatives from the PDC, such as Deputy Mariana Aylwin and Senator Carmen Frei, were reluctant to embrace the label “feminist” because of resistance to the term among sectors of their party, but both were strong proponents of feminist legislation, and Aylwin, in particular, spearheaded or co-signed numerous feminist policy proposals, most notably the success effort to legalize divorce. Each of these representatives emphasized in interviews with the author that they considered women’s rights a central policy concern. Since the transition, women representatives from RN have, to varying degrees, also shown support for some feminist policy issues. While their support is not consistent, and while these representatives reject the label “feminist”, their degree of participation in the development of feminist policy proposals far outpaces that of their party in general and is an indication of the growing influence of feminism beyond its base within the Left. For purposes of this analysis, these latter representatives are not considered feminist, due to their explicit rejection of the label and inconsistent support for feminist policy, but their growing political support for feminist proposals is evident in the higher number of bills introduced by a Left-Right alliance in recent years (see Table 1). 46 202 Liesl H Table 1 Women’s Rights Legislation, 1990-2006*; N = 43 Bill or Law # Topic Date Sponsor Extraordinary Urgency Passed Passed AAS Introduced Session Chamber Senate 1 Bill 197